Women.
Monday 30 April 2007
About eight o' clock, a woman, maybe in her late thirties, comes up to Jabba. "I can't find my kid," she tells him, "She's with a friend. One's ten and one's eight. I'm going spare."
We have procedure for this, and it requires pretty basic things like finding out where the person is staying, getting a good description of the kids (age, gender, height, hair colour, what they're wearing, last scene, etc.) When the kids are very young, we have three minutes to find them, and then have to call it into the security hut, who then put the clock on. When fifteen more minutes have passed, the police have to be called.
"When did you last see them?" Jabba asks.
(Wait for it.)
"Three hours ago," she says.
Three hours ago. That's bad enough, and usually in these kinds of circumstances (this isn't the first, although three hours is a new park record), the parents are oblivious to the kids having disappeared, or don't become aware of it until the last second, when they suddenly go into panic mode. However, we later found out from somebody else that this woman had been looking for three hours, and only now decided to get security involved.
We were both a bit stunned, but Jabba decides to get more information. Instead, the woman turns around, and fucks off. We call it into the hut anyway and pretty soon she comes back. We get a description although, as per usual, she has no idea what her own daughter is wearing. I have a rough idea of what I'm looking for and do a run around the complex. Nothing. I go back outside and ask where she last remembered seeing them, and it turns out it was the lower bar, so I call down there and get them to search. They don't find anyone either. Once again, the woman spins on her heels and rushes away, telling us she can't be still any longer, and is going back down the lower bar to search herself.
About five minutes later, a call comes over the radio that the children have been found. All's well that ends well, etc. No matter how foolish parents can be, this is always the conclusion you want. Later, the lady comes back up to the main complex - alone - and tells us that her children are with "a friend", and it's all okay now. She thanks us and that, we assume, was that.
About 10.45pm, she comes back up to me again. "I can't find my kids!" she exclaims. "I've just been down the other place and it's now closed." (I checked - it was.)
I'm gobsmacked. Then she delivers the punchline. "Yeah, I left them with this woman I met earlier. I could tell she had had a drink but she had a baby with her..." Now, can somebody explain to me how the fuck that sentence makes any sense at all? How a drunk woman with a baby is suddenly Mary fucking Poppins?
"I don't even know where she lives," she says, "What if she's taken them back to her caravan?"
I didn't know what to say. Jabba walked up, and when I explained to him what had happened he didn't know what to say either. "Maybe you should have a good look around the complex," I suggest, which perhaps wasn't of enormous benefit but Jesus, what the fuck was I supposed to do? I was torn between bemusement and tearing up my nomination for Alec Baldwin as 'Worst Parent of the Year'. Jabba still hadn't said a word, but had resorted to just shaking his head, staring at the woman, then back at me, and shaking his head some more.
Eventually, she went inside and - perhaps thank God, although maybe the kids might have been better off in the long run if they'd actually gone off with somebody else - she found them. They were still with the woman, who was clearly drunk and, Jabba informed me, came closed to being barred on Friday night due to some abusive behaviour. Again, what a stand-out choice for a babysitter. A drunk, abusive stranger who you met earlier today. It just warms the heart.
Later, a cleaner came rushing up to me and asked me to get a woman out of the ladies toilet who had been 'puking everywhere'. Now, we have policy for this as well. First, I got the cleaner, who was female, to go inside and make sure the place was clear, and if not, to clear it. Nobody else was allowed inside. Then, the cleaning girl and myself entered - as she was, and has to be, my witness - and we checked out the damage. Lying on the floor, back against the side wall of the cubicle, legs akimbo in a puddle of her own filth, was a young woman. Early 20s. Standing next to her was her friend, who was also drunk, but clearly nowhere near as bad. I took one look at them both. "Yeah, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the premises, I'm afraid. Can you get her up?"
"I can't," said the friend. "I can't carry her."
"No. Not carry her. Can you get here to her feet and escort her back home?"
"I can't," she said, again. "She's too drunk. Oh fucking hell," she said, to her friend, "You've fucked this right up!"
I was a little confused. "Look," I suggested, "All I want you to do is get her to her feet and take her outside."
"Can't you do it?" the friend asked.
Now it was my turn. "I can't," I said, "I'm not allowed to." This is true. Unless a female or child is in any kind of risk of harm or danger it is almost forbidden for me to 'handle' them in any way. It sounds ludicrous and in some cases this policy can be quite dangerous in itself but in the present climate it's all too easy for somebody to accuse x of being y. You don't need that shit on your record, even if it doesn't stick. Hence the female witness.
"I can help if she stumbles," I say, "But you're going to have to help her up and walk her out."
Eventually she does. The friend is absolutely fucked and staggering all over the place. She almost goes arse-over-tit two or three times even before we've even left the fucking toilet. "Oh my god," says the less drunk one, "Oh, please help."
"It'll be easier outside," I tell her, simply because out there we have a wonderous thing called carpet.
Okay. So finally we get her out the main doors, and sit her down on the step. She's having a hard time even staying upright so I ask the cleaning girl to sit with her and to "grab her" if she falls. It's one thing to not be able to 'handle' somebody, but quite another to then have them falling over and cracking their head open. "I'm okay," she kept on saying, over and over, perhaps twenty seconds apart.
I enquire with the other girl about whether she can walk her home, and then she tells me they don't have a key to their chalet. And then she drops the bombshell. "My sister is one of the ENTS girls."
I thought she looked familiar. Immediately I knew who her sister was. I pressed her on it but she didn't want to tell me any more. "I don't want to get her into trouble," she said and then, of course, started crying. And crying. And crying. Finally her resolve crumbled (by now I'd thrown my handling policy out the window and had broken three of her fingers) and I assured her I wouldn't let any of this get out. My only concern was getting her and her friend back home safely. So, she goes back into the complex to get the key. I radio the security hut to send a car down. The cleaning girl is propping up the drunk. She's "fine". All seems well.
And then pukey-pukerson empties the remainder of her stomach - which clearly stretched into several gallons - all over her legs, the steps, the brickwork below, and anywhere else freeflowing chunky liquid likes to reach.
Nice.
She sits back up. "I'm fine," she says. I fucking swear to God.
By now the park security had arrived. "She ain't getting in the van if she's like that," one of them offered, helpfully. The friend had returned and, overhearing this, started booing again about how they didn't want to be slung into the back of a van. "No, no," the park guy replies, "It's a bus. We just call it the van."
We get the drunk back on her feet and she's staggering all over the place, but still fucking fine. Her friend's crying, she's swaying, and the guys in park are no doubt adding Febreze to their wish lists but somehow she's off and away, into the 'van' and gone.
I did what I said and didn't bother writing any of it up in an evil incident report, even though I should have done, and would have done for anybody else. The thing is, she was just drunk, and that's all it was. We've all been there. We've all puked, at least once. Neither of the girls were abusive, and neither were in any way a problem beyond the chunder (dome). I had no interest in getting the ENTS girl into the shit (I later found out that she could well have been fired over it.)
It didn't even bother me when this same ENTS girl later tracked down Jabba and thanked him for helping out her sister and keeping it quiet. Those are the brakes. It's a thankless job.
And I guess I'm just too nice a guy.
posted by Sheamus @ 2:15 am
